“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He went back to base of the stairs and bellowed Ryder’s name. “Put your shoes on, boy. We’ve got to go get your mom.”
It was nearly an hour later when he pulled up behind her car on the unlit deserted highway. He was pissed off seeing her sitting there with no lights on, completely exposed to the elements, completely exposed to anyone who wanted to come up and harass her.
He told Ryder to stay put as he got out and walked over to Grace’s car. She had her cell phone clutched in her hand, and when she looked up and saw that it was him she looked relieved.
She had been scared. He hated that she was alone and scared in the dark. “Thank you for coming.” She got out of the car and wrapped her arms around him. “I couldn’t tell if it was your car or not. It’s so dark here.”
He stiffened. “Did someone else stop to help you?”
“A trucker did. I told him my husband was on the way.” The word husband put him in a fouler mood. He would have married her. She could have been his wife, wanting for nothing.
“Do you have any idea what could have happened to you tonight? Do you know how dangerous it is to be out here alone and unprotected?”
“I didn’t plan this. I had to go to work. It’s not like I wanted my car to die in the middle of the road.”
“You should have said no when they called you in.”
“I couldn’t say no. I need the money.”
“You don’t need anything. I’m here now. I can provide for you.”
“I don’t want—”
“This is not about what you want anymore. You robbed me of the chance to take care of my son for too many damn years. Now you don’t have a choice in the matter. I’m going to do what I think is right and I don’t want to hear another damn thing about it. Now get in the car. We’re going home.”
Grace stood there frozen for a moment.
“Mom?” Ryder called from the car. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, sweetie,” she said, her voice sounding thick. “I’m sorry if I worried you.”
Duke ushered her into the car and closed the door behind her a little harder than he should. He had barely gotten used to the idea of being a father. He couldn’t begin to imagine his life as a single father.
*
The next morning Grace woke to the beeping sound of a truck backing up in front of her bedroom window. She glanced over to the clock on her bedside to see that it was already half past eight. She couldn’t believe she had slept so long. Or slept through the noise outside. She could hear men’s voices and banging, and the sound of Duke issuing orders like he was a general. She must have been more tired than she thought.
The ride home was one of the longest of her life. Duke was upset with her, and she understood that his stubborn silences and dictates happened because he had been worried for her. She was scared as she waited for him on the lonely stretch of highway. And terrified as the trucker came up to her car and offered her his assistance. But she couldn’t change what had happened. She really couldn’t have prevented it. And Duke, who never took a handout and always worked for everything he had, should understand why she didn’t want him to magically fix everything in her life after being out of it for so long.
She dressed after calling out of work. She had no car and she was pretty sure Duke would lock her in the house if she attempted to pick up another shift. Ryder was standing at the living room window, book bag on his back, looking at his father as he pointed a backhoe in the direction of the shed. “What is going on?” Grace swallowed.
“Dad is knocking down the shed.”
“What?” She had never heard Ryder refer to Duke as Dad before.
“He said it was dangerous and the last thing he needed was it falling on top of me. He’s replacing it with a metal one.”
“A metal one?”
“He said he’ll paint it a nice color for you and it can’t be uglier than the shed we have now.”
“I guess you’re right.” She ran her fingers through his dark hair. “How are you this morning, sweetheart?” Ryder had been calmer this week than she had seen him in a long time.
“I’m fine. Can you take me to school? Duke is pissed off and I don’t want to bother him.”
“Don’t say pissed.” She looked at Duke, who was barking out orders to what looked like a full construction crew. “I would take you to school, but I don’t have a car, remember? We’ll have to ask Duke for his.”
“He got you one,” Ryder said as if it were nothing. “Over there. He called the dealership and told them to bring over the safest one they had.”
She looked to where Ryder was pointing to see a large luxury SUV. Her jaw dropped. She had been saving up to buy a sensible used midsized car. She didn’t want an SUV. She didn’t want him buying anything for her, and what made matters worse was that he’d done this all without talking to her, without asking what she wanted.
It was a pigheaded jackass thing to do.
“You’re not going to make him take it back, are you?” Ryder asked, seeming to read her mind. “I hated the old car and now that I know my dad is a car god, I really hate that car. It was embarrassing.”
Grace repressed a sigh. She knew it was hard for Ryder to be one of the few kids in his class without a father, and with a mother who could barely make ends meet. She didn’t want to disappoint him again. “No, I won’t make him take it back.” She really wished she could, though. This was not part of the bet. This didn’t prove anything to her except that he had a lot of money and he could use it to get what he wanted.
“The keys are on the coffee table.”
“Okay.” She scooped them up. “Let’s get you to school.”
She stepped outside into a hub of activity, and just as if she had an alarm on her, Duke’s eyes zeroed in on her as soon as her foot hit the dirt. There was heat there. Not just anger heat, but the heat of a man who was hungry for something he couldn’t have. They hadn’t made love last night, either. She was too weary and he was too angry at her, but she still missed him. She found that even though they never seemed to be on the same page during the day, her mornings were always a little better after she spent the night with him.
He stalked over to them, his eyes on her the whole time. If she didn’t know Duke, she might be afraid of him. Most men would cower under that glare. “I’m having some work done on the house today.”
“I see,” she said, trying to hide her anger in front of their son.
“I got you a new car, too.” He studied her face, trying to gauge her reaction and daring her to say something about it.
“I saw that, too. I’m going to use it to take our son to school and then run some errands. And then we can talk about it later.”
“I don’t think there is anything to talk about.”
“You don’t think at all,” she shot back but then caught herself, not wanting to get into it in front of Ryder,
His jaw tightened and his nostrils flared just a bit, but then he looked at Ryder.
“I’m sorry I got caught up out here,” he said, his voice softening. “You could have interrupted me, you know.”
“You looked busy.”
“I’m not too busy for my boy.” He lightly nudged Ryder’s chin with his fist. “I’ve got a surprise for you when you get home.”
“Is it a helicopter? I’ve always wanted one of those,” Ryder joked with a straight face.
Duke grinned at him and Grace’s anger diminished quite a bit. He loved Ryder. It had been a few weeks, but she could see the love for their son in his eyes. It was a good thing, but it was going to make things much harder for them when Duke’s thirty days with them was up. She was going to have to pick up her life and move to Las Vegas. Despite how much of a pigheaded jackass he had been, she couldn’t say that he wasn’t a good father. She couldn’t say that he was losing the bet, even though she wasn’t sure how things were going to work in Vegas.
When she’d proposed the bet, she hadn’
t though Duke would fall into fatherhood so seamlessly. There were big bumps in the road, but they were all between him and her and she didn’t know how they would fare in Vegas. In his territory where neither she nor Ryder knew anyone. Maybe she could talk to Duke and he would reconsider.
And maybe she would sprout a horn and wings and fly away.
“Come on, Ryder. We’re going to be late.”
She dropped him off at school and after running a few errands, she went to the bank to pay her bills. She could have paid them online, but she needed an excuse to be out of the house for a while. She didn’t want to see what Duke was doing to her home and she didn’t want to fight with him right now. She just didn’t know how to be around him during the day and she was afraid things would always be like this. When they were young, they always had to sneak off to be with each other. Their time together was stolen, every moment they spent together precious, and it made her wonder: If they had been in the same places in life all those years ago, would things have worked out? Would they have loved so strongly? Would their love have lasted more than a few weeks if it had ever really started in the first place?
“Hey there, Grace,” Eunice, the longtime bank teller, greeted her when she walked up. “Come for a withdrawal?”
“No. I’m here to pay my mortgage and my electric bill.”
“You sure about that?” Eunice frowned.
“Yes.”
“I’m pretty sure those things have been paid.” She typed something into her computer. “Yup. Your mortgage was paid in full this morning and all your bills are paid probably for the next five years.”
“Excuse me?”
“Must be nice to have Duke back. Who would have thought you would have struck gold when you fell for him? My grandmother used to say the gates of prison were crying for that boy and they were, but he made good. I don’t know how I didn’t see that your boy was his. Looks just like him! We knew you and Duke had a little thing going after he got into that fight with the Andersen boy, but we never guessed how big that thing would be. You fooled us good by being gone all that time. We figured Ryder belonged to that man your daddy told us you were engaged to.”
“Tell me, Eunice, do people have anything else better to do in this town besides discuss my business?”
“Nope.” Eunice shook her head. “Where there are Kings there is talk, and now that Colt is the owner of this here bank, everybody is going to be talking about them for a long time. Why don’t you take some money out and get your hair done or buy some new clothes? You have a rich man in your pocket, you might as well make use of it.”
“I’ve got to go, Eunice. That rich man and I have some discussing to do.”
She drove home on autopilot. When she arrived, she found her house in a state that was nearly unrecognizable.
Some of the shingles on the roof had been replaced. All the rotting pieces of the porch had been replaced with fresh new wood, and the house was being transformed from an ugly brown to a pretty sand color. Duke stood out there alone in front of a newly constructed monstrosity of a garage/shed.
Her irritation went up a few notches. “Where’s the army?”
“At lunch,” he grunted as he looked up at the building his crew had constructed in a matter of hours. “Good workers. But then again, I’m paying them enough to work this hard.”
“Is that your solution to every problem? Just throw money at it?”
Duke looked at her, his gorgeous dark eyes full of heat. “Yup,” he said slowly. “It’s one of the beautiful things about being rich. I can pay for shit to get done quickly and exactly the way I want it.”
“But life isn’t all about what you want, is it? There are other people you have to consult, to consider. You just can’t throw your weight around and expect everyone to fall at your feet. Life doesn’t work that way.”
“It works that way for me now.”
“Are you serious? Do you think this macho-man crap is going to work with me? The world may ask how high when you say jump, but I won’t. If we’re going to do this together you need to talk to me. Your last name may be King but you don’t rule me.”
“What do you want me to do?” He rounded on her, heat in his eyes. “Apologize? For what? Replacing your piece-of-shit car? Making this place not a fucking embarrassment for my son? Paying your bills so you can spend more time with him, instead of with people who don’t need you? The way I see it, you should be thanking me instead of giving me shit for doing what’s right.”
“Damn it, Duke. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to make me into a bad guy. I did the best I could for our son. He’s fine. I’m sick of you making me feel like what I did isn’t good enough.”
“It’s not good enough!” he barked at her.
“I will not let you make me feel like a bad mother. I’ve worked my ass off for him! Everything I have done is for him.”
“You didn’t have to do it alone. You could have come to me.”
“When was a good time? When you were in prison serving hard time? Or the day you got out with no job and no prospects? I could have taken the easy road out and let my father arrange a marriage for me. I could have had a man take care of me and never worked a day in my life, but I did it all on my own. I went to school and work and I raised a baby with a father in prison and it was damn hard. I learned about hard work from you. I learned about pride and instead of throwing it in my face that I can’t give my son the best of everything, you should appreciate what a great kid he is despite all the stuff that could have gone wrong. I thought you would have been proud of what I did, because as I was doing it, I thought about you. I thought this is how you would want him to be raised. It may not have been perfect, but it’s sure as hell better than what you had with your father.”
“Don’t you bring up my father.”
“And don’t you dare doubt my parenting.” She walked away from him then, knowing that this argument wasn’t going anywhere.
Chapter 14
“I can’t believe you bought Ryder a car.”
Duke lay on his back that evening thinking about the day. It was something that he always did. Reflect. Go over his actions and see if he could have done anything differently. He had started doing this in prison—really evaluating his decisions and thinking about different paths he could have taken. A lot of the time he had no regrets. He still would have gone after Patrick Andersen. He still would have ended up in prison.
Prison wasn’t fun for him, but he had learned a lot there. About people, about friendships, about loyalty and family. About Colt, who—now that he thought about it—was probably the most loyal to him of them all. Colt was the one who’d picked him up when he was released from prison. Colt was the one who took him home and gave him a place to stay. Colt was the only one who didn’t bat an eyelash when Duke told him that he wanted to open up a car customizing shop and staff it with ex-cons.
He’d just nodded and said, “Let me be in charge of expansion.” Duke agreed, and now they had a billion-dollar empire.
Colt had done so much for him. He had always done the most for him without thought or question or wanting thanks. And the only reason for it that Duke could think of was that Duke had taken more than a few beatings from their father for stuff Colt did. He was bigger. He could take it, and toward the end, he could give it back to their father.
It was the reason he’d left. He had gone after Levi for breaking a plate and Duke had broken his nose. They never saw their father again after that. Maybe that’s why Colt did all he did. Who knows how they would have turned out if he had stuck around?
Colt was there with him today, along with Levi, when he showed Ryder the car he’d had delivered there for him for them to restore together. They should have been closer, gotten along better, but maybe that’s just how he and Colt were. They didn’t need big conversations or bonding moments. They were just there for each other when it mattered.
And that’s why Duke couldn’t regret what he’d done today. He
wasn’t a big believer in fate, but there had to be a reason that old El Camino was at the house across the street from the judge. There had to be a reason that Ryder was outside then. This car was meant for them to work on.
He could still see Grace’s face, completely pissed with him for making another big decision without telling her. He had paid off all her debts, bought her a new car, and changed her house without asking her about any of it. If somebody did that to him, he would have been pissed, too. He was used to always being in charge, always doing things for himself without consulting anyone. Maybe he should have told her before he did those things, but he didn’t regret any of it. He wanted her to live a life without worry, without stress. Her life should be as easy as possible and if he could do that for her, he would.
The door at the top of the stairs opened and soon he heard Grace’s familiar footsteps. He was surprised that she was there. He thought this would be another night without her. She was still pissed at him. He could see it all over her face as she walked toward him.
She pulled off her nightgown as he sat up. Damn, he loved her body. The plumpness in her hips and thighs. The roundness in her bottom, the way her breasts slightly bounced as she walked over to him.
He reached for her, attempted to touch her, but she slapped his hands away. “Don’t kiss me. I’m furious with you. I want this over as quickly as possible.”
“You don’t have to do this,” he said to her. She made it sound like sleeping with him was a chore. It wasn’t something he had asked her to do.
“Yes, I do.” She straddled him and he could feel the heat from her sex on him and it made it hard in an instant. He studied her face as she took his hand and guided it to her breast and then her nipple. “Squeeze them. I like it when you do it.” He could see the arousal in her eyes, and he felt his heart began to pound as he did what she asked. “Now put it in your mouth. I like that, too.”
“Would you tell me if you didn’t like something?”
“I-I…” He eyes drifted shut and her mouth hung open slightly as he sucked her nipple into his mouth. He could hear the catch in her voice and he slipped his fingers between her legs and stroked her just so he could see how aroused she was. His fingers came away wet. “I like everything you do,” she admitted but he had a feeling that she hadn’t wanted to. “I’m ready,” she panted. And when he went to kiss her again she pushed against his chest and gave him a hard, hot look. The arousal and anger in her eyes was such a stunning combination that it made him want her even more.
Betting the Bad Boy Page 14
